Whether or Not the World Ends Friday, a Village in Turkey Is Cleaning Up

Sirince May Be a Safe Vantage Point, But Its Doomsday Trinkets Are Perishable

According to Mayan prophecy, Sirince, Turkey, is one of the few places that will escape the December 21st apocalypse. As thousands of Doomsday believers flock there, the town's hoping they'll spend like there's no tomorrow. WSJ's Joe Parkinson reports.

By

Joe Parkinson

Updated Dec. 20, 2012 10:35 p.m. ET

SIRINCE, Turkey—In this sleepy village on Turkey's Aegean coast, residents have been preparing for an apocalyptic business opportunity: the end of the world.

Thousands of believers in a Mayan prophecy that Dec. 21 is the "judgment day" that will wipe out most of mankind are expected to flock to Sirince, a hillside village of just 600 inhabitants in western Turkey. Adherents of the doomsday cult that bases its calculations on the ending of an era in the 5,125-year-old Mayan calendar say the area is one of a handful of locations in the world that will be spared the end of days.

Like There's No Tomorrow

Self-described shamans performed a ceremony at the Cihuatán archeological site in Aguilares, north of San Salvador, El Salvador, Dec. 18. Jose Cabezas/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Many of Sirince's residents ascribe to a different belief: that the influx will offer an economic stimulus to die for, as visitors spend money like there's no tomorrow.

Hotels in the village have been booked for months, and some residents are charging guests hundreds of dollars to rent rooms in their homes. Turkish media reports that Hollywood stars will visit the town this weekend are attracting still more visitors and driving up prices. Local officials estimate that more than 10,000 people, including large groups of Americans, Israelis and Japanese—plus large groups of journalists—will descend on the village. New product lines are being pitched directly at superstitious survivalists.

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Winemaker Erkan Onoglu has produced 6,000 bottles of "Wine of the Apocalypse," blending three local grapes. Restaurant owner Ismet Bursali plans to serve the tipple with his special doomsday menu, including a "forbidden apple" dessert and the specially brewed tea called "last drop."

At pop-up shops hawking specially designed doomsday products, visitors can buy pendants inscribed with Mayan symbols and rose-flavored doomsday Turkish delight. A nearby billboard advertises cups of hot chocolate "just like the Mayans used to drink." T-shirts and sweaters branded "Get Ready for the end!" are selling for around $15.

ENLARGE

Doomsday perfume

Serkan Adagume, a 29-year-old yacht captain from the nearby town of Selcuk, is hoping to sell 5,000 T-shirts and 600 bottles of doomsday unisex perfume called Aztech.

"Of course we don't believe the world will end, but this is an unmissable business opportunity," Mr. Adagume said as he tried to unload a doomsday coffee cup. "We don't know how many people will come, but I just want to sell this stuff because it's worthless the next day."

Earlier this week, groups of tourists wandered around Sirince's cobblestone streets, but locals were still awaiting the deluge of doomsday believers to arrive. "I'm not here for the end of the world. I'm just here for the party," said Kassie Welch, a German who had come to Turkey with her boyfriend.

ENLARGE

Ahmet Yener, who runs a restaurant in Sirince, says he does not believe in Doomsday but is happy to receive visitors on a usually quiet time of the year.
Ayla Albayrak/The Wall Street Jo

Doomsday cultists aren't the first New Age group to believe that Sirince has a special energy. For centuries, some Christian groups have believed that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was assumed into heaven from a spot nearby. Others say Sirince was the birthplace of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and the forest. Some devotees believe that a ship like Noah's Ark will arrive in Sirince town after a flood on Dec. 21.

Doomsday predictions based on the Mayan calendar have become so widespread that the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration has posted an official denial on the NASA website.

"The world will not end in 2012," the statement says. "Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after Dec. 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on Dec. 21, 2012."

The Vatican earlier this month also moved to squelch talk of an imminent apocalypse, with the Holy See's daily newspaper running a front-page editorial titled "The end is not nigh—at least for now."

Some people in Sirince are concerned that area facilities will be unable to deal with a crush. "This is a kind of madness and it's taking over people's minds…If tens of thousands of people come to Sirince, the village will have its own doomsday; we won't cope" said Ahmet Yener, a 34-year-old restaurant manager.

ENLARGE

A tourist looks at products on sale on the streets of Sirince.
AFP/Getty Images

Despite those concerns, Sirince appears to have taken a more entrepreneurial approach than other areas facing a deluge of cultists on Dec. 21. In Bugarach, a village of 200 residents in the French Pyrenees, Mayor Jean-Pierre Delord on Tuesday pleaded for New Age fanatics, sightseers and media crews not to converge on the area, according to French media reports. About 150 police officers will be on duty to block routes to the nearby Pic de Bugarach, a mountain that some groups believe will open on Judgment Day, revealing aliens that will whisk nearby humans to safety in spaceships.

In Sirince, most residents privately admit they think the doomsday predictions are baloney. But some local businessmen see the arrival of giddy believers as a divine intervention. Meanwhile, there was a chance the heavens could rain on Sirince's parade. Strong winds and rains battered the village on Thursday, causing local businesses to fear the doomsday stimulus could be tempered.

At the nearby hillside shrine that commemorates the assumption of Jesus' mother into heaven, staff were also anticipating an unseasonal tourism boost. Padre Paulo, a 34-year-old Franciscan Friar from Rome, who was decorating the shrine for the Christmas holidays, said he is skeptical about doomsday theories but conceded that the commotion had prompted him to think about the song he would like to hear during the apocalypse. "The Gospel says that only the Father knows when the world will end, but when it does, I think it would be good to listen to some heavy metal," he said.

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